Sure, more and more electronics have built-in batteries, charged with a multitude of chargers with distinct prongs, so that most of us now have a collection of tangled charger wires laying around at any available outlet. It seems that for the most part, no two chargers are alike.

But we still use plenty of devices that still utilize conventional batteries. These include: remote controls, flashlights, children’s toys, and some of us are still hanging onto portable CD players (myself included). What do you do with your batteries once they have been used?

If you’re like most people, you are tossing those acid-filled tubes into a garbage can, to eventually leak and wreak havoc on the soil and maybe ground water of the area in which it is dumped. The cumulative affect of many thousands or millions of batteries can be devastating.

While disposable batteries can be recycled, it is very costly. Why not try rechargeable batteries? The next time you are out at a store, buy a charger (if you don’t have one) and a pack of batteries to replace those in a couple of devices that use the most batteries in your life. Let’s suppose it’s the remote control and a discman.

Buy the charger and batteries, bring them home, charge, and according to the manufacturer’s instructions, hours later, you have fully charged batteries at your disposal. They’re long-lasting and can be recharged thousands of times. A charger and pack of batteries to get started should run you about $20 and your time spent should be around twenty minutes.

When your rechargeable batteries (loose or in devices) do wear out, you can recycle them through the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation.

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